Dentro dos meus braços // In my arms
Os abraços hão de ser milhões de abraços // The hugs will become millions of hugs
Apertado assim, colado assim, calado assim // Tight like so; entwined like so; hushed, like so
Abraços e beijinhos, e carinhos sem ter fim // Hugs and kisses and caresses without end
Que é pra acabar com esse negócio de você viver sem mim // Which is to put an end to this nonsense of you living without me!

(repeat)

—
“Garota de Ipanema”(1962, Tom Jobim & Vinicius de Moraes)
—

—

Olha que coisa mais linda // Look, what a most beautiful thing
Mais cheia de graça // Most full of grace
É ela a menina // It’s her, the girl
Que vem e que passa // That appears and passes by
Num doce balanço // In a sweet sway
A caminho do mar // On her way to the sea

Moça do corpo dourado // The girl with that body of gold
Do sol de Ipanema // From the sun of Ipanema
O seu balançado é mais que um poema // Her sashay is more than a poem
É a coisa mais linda que eu já vi passar // It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen go by

Ah, se ela soubesse // Oh, if she only knew
Que quando ela passa /That when she passes by
O mundo inteirinho se enche de graça // The whole wide world swells up with grace
E fica mais lindo // And grows more beautiful
Por causa do amor // On account of love

—
“O amor em paz” (1961, Tom Jobim & Vinicius de Moraes)
—

—

Eu amei // I loved
E amei, ai de mim, muito mais // I loved, woe to me, much more
Do que devia amar // Than I ought to have loved
E chorei // And I cried
Ao sentir que iria sofrer // Sensing that I would suffer
E me desesperar // And grow desperate

Foi então // That was when
Que da minha infinita tristeza // Out of my infinite sadness
Aconteceu você // You came along
Encontrei em você // I found in you
A razão de viver // My reason for living
E de amar em paz // And for loving in peace
E não sofrer mais // And never suffering again
Nunca mais // Never again
Porque o amor // Because love
É a coisa mais triste // Is the saddest thing
Quando se desfaz // When it falls apart
O amor é a coisa mais triste // Love is the saddest thing
Quando se desfaz // When it falls apart

Bossa nova classics are some of the songs curious listeners search for the most, so here are a few of the standards. And as you can see, the Portuguese lyrics differ significantly from their respective English versions (“No more blues“; “Girl from Ipanema“; “Once I loved“).

So much has been written about bossa nova that I think my posts on bossa nova songs are probably more valuable just for the literal translation of the lyrics, in part because there are so many different stories out there – even in generally reliable sources – that it’s hard to feel confident about the veracity of many of them. But below I provide a little commentary on each of these songs.

A “lavadeira” like the ones João Gilberto says he was inspired by.

João Gilberto liked to say he developed his innovative bossa-nova rhythm on the guitar in imitation of the rhythmic sway of the hips of the lavadeiras (laundry women) in Juazeiro, his home town in Bahia. He has also always insisted that bossa nova isn’t a genre; it’s just sambas performed with a little added twist – the new bossa of his guitar and voice. As you know, that bossa — whether it was the result of an epiphany he had while watching the lavadeiras of Juazeiro, or the culmination of a trend in Brazilian music that he managed to capture and express — turned the Brazilian music scene on its head in 1958, and in turn, quickly swept the United States off its feet.

“Chega de Saudade” was the title track on João Gilberto’s seminal 1958 album that is considered the cornerstone of bossa nova. Tom Jobim summed up the importance of the album and João Gilberto’s influence on the Brazilian music scene in his clear-sighted text in the liner notes. At the time, his affirmations seemed exaggerated to many consumers who had barely heard of 27-year-old Gilberto: “In almost no time, he [João Gilberto] has influenced an entire generation of arrangers, guitarists, musicians and singers,” Tom wrote.

Funnily enough, according to Tom, quoted in A Canção no Tempo, this song — which casts off saudade in its lyrics — is nostalgic in its very construction, and not really the best representative of anything “nova”: “Its introduction recalls those traditional introductions of ensembles of guitar and cavaquinho … It has all of the classic modulations of old music… It’s a nostalgic song that’s rejecting saudade!”

But the version released on João Gilberto’s album was indeed bossa nova, with João Gilberto’s rhythmically innovative guitar strokes woven together with his soft style of singing and the simplicity of the lyrics — including the rhyme of peixinhos (fishies) with beijinhos (kissies), which raised more than a few critical eyebrows.

“Chega de Saudade” was first released on Elizeth Cardoso’s landmark album Canção do amor demais, six months prior to Gilberto’s Chega de Saudade, and on that album already represents a strong precursor to bossa nova, with João Gilberto playing his signature guitar accompaniment. Cardoso’s album is considered a “bridge” to the bossa-nova period that came into swing with Chega de Saudade.

22 September 1963: Lyrics published in Jornal do Brasil column “Sing along with Radio JB”

Tom and Vinicius said that “Garota de Ipanema” was inspired by a teenage girl who they often admired as she passed by Bar Veloso, a bar on the street where she lived where the two were devoted patrons in the early ’60s. The bar has since taken the name of the song. In a 1965 interview with the magazine Manchete, Vinicius identified the girl as Heloísa (Helô) Menezes Pais Pinto (Helô Pinheiro, after marriage), saying: “For her we composed, with the utmost respect and speechless enchantment, the samba that put her in headlines around the world and turned our dear ‘Ipanema’ into a magical word for foreign listeners.”

The song wasn’t thrown together on a napkin in Bar Veloso, though. Both Tom and Vinicius labored carefully over their respective parts and, together with João, presented the version they were pleased with during the show Encontro, which debuted its forty-five day run at the boîteAu Bon Gourmet on 2 August 1962. During the show, the trio included a playful intro to “Garota de Ipanema” that could actually serve as an introduction to much of bossa nova:

Vinicius de Moraes with Helô Pinheiro (1960s)

João Gilberto: “Tom e se você fizesse agora uma canção que possa nos dizer, contar o que é o amor…” (Tom, how about if you were to make a song right now that might tell us, explain what love is…)

Vinicius de Moraes: “Para essa canção se realizar, quem dera o João para cantar” (For this song to come to be, if only we could have João to sing…)

João Gilberto: “Ah, mas quem sou eu? Eu sou mais vocês. Melhor se nós cantássemos os três” (Ah, but who am I? I prefer the two of you. Best for all three of us to sing!)

…Olha que coisa mais linda, mais cheia de graça…

21 August 1964: “Brazil seen from afar” column in Rio’s Diário das Noticias newspaper features news of “Garota de Ipanema,” the “latest champion of album sales in the United States, beating out the Beatles’ ‘A Hard Day’s Night.'”

“Garota de Ipanema” was released in early 1963 on the Phillips LP A Bossa dos Cariocas, and six months later Tom introduced it to American listeners on the Verve LP The Composer of Desafinado Plays. At the end of ’63, Verve released the Astrud Gilberto/Stan Getz single “Girl from Ipanema” (with the title taken from the new English-language version, by Norman Gimbel), and then in 1964, the tremendously influential album Getz/Gilberto, which changed the musical landscape around much of the world, became the first Grammy-Award-winning album from non-American artists and propelled “Garota de Ipanema” and the amateur Astrud Gilberto to enduring international stardom.

Finally, I don’t have much to say about “O amor em paz,” except thatthe harmony and lyrics are brilliantly complementary in this song, shifting between minor and major modes as the lyrics shift between notes of sadness and joy. João Gilberto released the song on his self-titled LP in 1961.

I’m here in a hotel room, which looks out over a plaza, which looks out over all of the lonesomeness in the world.

It’s 10 p.m. and not a soul to be seen.

My ship leaves only tomorrow afternoon and it’s impossible that anyone’s sadder than I am.

And as always at these times, I write you letters that I never send.

I left Paris behind with the longing of a year of love, and ahead of me, there’s Brazil, which is a permanent passion in my life as a constant exile.

The bad part is that today is September 7th – the national holiday – and I know that in our embassy there’s a party that would do me good, with Baden [Powell] tearing it up on the guitar.

A little while ago I called over there to greet the ambassador, and everyone came to the phone. They’re really burning the midnight oil!

Have you ever spent September 7, my dear Tom, alone, in a foreign port, on a night without any prospects? It’s rough, maestro!

I can’t wait to see you and Carlinhos [Lyra] and get back to work. Think that this year was practically dedicated to Baden, because Paris is no joke! But now the shit really went down; Europe had to bend over! But even so, we made some songs, like “Formosa,” – you’ll see! All sambão! It almost seems like when we miss Brazil, when we’re far away, we seek out the more traditional sort of samba rather than bossa nova; isn’t it funny? As Lucio Rangel would say, ‘roots!'”

I’m going to write home now requesting two different menus for my arrival. For lunch, a “tutuzinho” [dish of beans, bacon and manioc meal] with crackling, a toasty little pork loin, collard greens, and coconut sweets. For dinner, chicken with brown gravy, with rice that’s really loose just so, and “papos de anjo” (like Angels’ double chin – traditional Portuguese dessert). But the kind that only mom makes best! The kind that, if the person were truly honorable, should only be eaten while tucked into a warm bath, in total darkness, thinking at most about the woman he loves. You can see how I am: neither here nor there!

I was really pleased by the success of ‘Girl from Ipanema’ in the United States. And lil’ Astrud!? What a perfect deal. Let’s see if this time the intermediaries leave ‘some’ for us!

I was also really pleased by the news of the success of ‘Berimbau’ there in Brazil. I hear they’re playing the song ‘for real!’ That makes me really happy for Baden. And why lie? For myself too. It’s good to know that we haven’t been forgotten, that the people continue singing our songs; after all, deep down, that’s why we compose! I remember so well when we wrote the samba, one late late night, about three years ago. I told Baden: ‘this looks like a hit.’ And we sang and sang the samba until the sun came up.
Quem é homem de bem não trai o amor que lhe quer seu bem// A good man doesn’t betray the love that wants the best for him

In 1963, Vinicius de Moraes assumed a post with the Brazilian delegation for UNESCO in Paris. He had worked as a diplomat since 1946, when he took his first post as Brazilian Vice-Consul in Los Angeles, beginning a life of “constant exile,” which he makes reference to in the letter. Lúcio Rangel, whom he quotes in the letter, was the music critic who introduced Vinicius and Tom in 1956. September 7th is Brazil’s independence day.

In early 1962 Vinicius met Baden Powell, and the two began an intense period of musical collaboration. Baden joined Vinicius in Paris in November, 1963.

Tom & Vinicius became close friends and partners after working together on Vinicius’s musical “Orfeu Negro” (Black Orpheus) in 1956.

When the military overthrew João Goulart’s government on March 31, 1964, Vinicius de Moraes returned to Brazil, where he resumed work as a cronista for Fatos e Fotos and writing pieces on MPB for Diário Carioca. As the country sank into the darkest years of the military dictatorship, Vinicius turned his attention more and more to his music. In 1964 he had a five-month run in a famous show with Dorival Caymmi, Oscar Castro Neves and Quarteto em Cy at Copacabana’s Zum Zum nightclub; the show’s 1965 album included this recording of the letter to Tom, and “Berimbau.” In 1966, Vinicius and Baden released their groundbreaking album Afrosambas, with sambas composed between 1962 and 1965, including “Berimbau.”

Quem da solidão fez seu bem // Anyone who’s chosen solitude for their darling
Vai terminar seu refém // Will end up its hostage
E a vida pára também // And life stops too
Não vai nem vem // Neither comes nor goes
Vira uma certa paz // Just becomes some kind of peace
Que não faz nem desfaz // That neither does nor undoes
Tornando as coisas banais // Making things so mundane
E o ser humano incapaz de prosseguir //And the human being unable to carry on
Sem ter pra onde ir // With nowhere to go
Infelizmente eu nada fiz // Unfortunately I did nothing
Não fui feliz nem infeliz // I was neither happy nor unhappy
Eu fui somente um aprendiz // I was merely an apprentice
Daquilo que eu não quis // Of that which I never wished for
Aprendiz de morrer // Apprentice of dying
Mas pra aprender a morrer // But to learn to die
Foi necessário viver // It was necessary to live
E eu vivi // And I lived
Mas nunca descobri // But I never discovered
Se essa vida existe // If this life really exists
Ou essa gente é que insiste // Or if it’s just those people who insist
Em dizer que é triste ou que é feliz // On saying they’s sad or they’re happy
Vendo a vida passar // Watching life pass by
E essa vida é uma atriz // And this life is an actress
Que corta o bem na raiz // That nips any good at the bud
E faz do mal cicatriz // And of evil makes a scar
Vai ver até que essa vida é morte // For all we know maybe even this life is death
E a morte é // And death is
A vida que se quer //The life that’s wished for.

— Commentary —

In 1969, when Baden Powell was separating from his second wife, Tereza Drummond, his friend and partner Paulo César Pinheiro went to stay with him. In the throes of Baden’s separation they composed this song, which Pinheiro says was perhaps “the craziest of all the sambas we made together, but, without false modesty, it’s one of the most beautiful, without a doubt, of all time, in the anthology of Brazilian popular songs.”

Elizeth Cardoso released the song on her 1970 LP Falou e Disse, and later that year Baden Powell and Paulo César Pinheiro released it on their album As Músicas de Baden Powell e Paulo César Pinheiro, “Os Cantores da Lapinha”.